[HN Gopher] Tolstoy's Children's Stories
___________________________________________________________________
Tolstoy's Children's Stories
Author : smiljo
Score : 124 points
Date : 2020-04-27 16:38 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lareviewofbooks.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (lareviewofbooks.org)
| superimposition wrote:
| Here's free collection of Tolstoy's Fables for Children
|
| https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-fable...
| hy56 wrote:
| > _If you do this, be sure to read something lighter afterward,
| like perhaps Anna Karenina's suicide scene, or a biography of
| Sylvia Plath_
|
| Nobody, including the author, seems to have mentioned the
| cultural aspect in all this. Allow me:
|
| Q: What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a
| Russian pessimist?
|
| A: A Russian pessmist thinks that things can't get any worse. A
| Russian optimist thinks they not only can, but will.
| blankton wrote:
| Im currently reading Archipel Gulag from Alexander
| Solschenitzyn and that joke sounds quite familliar. The reality
| of the past century in Russia really proved optimists wrong.
| Devestating to read that book. It literally puts me on breaks
| to just sit and think. Sad that humans are capable of such
| cruelty.
| coribuci wrote:
| Keep in mind that this book was written in USA
| riazrizvi wrote:
| I think classic folk tales were more macabre, but since consumers
| today are not interested in them so much it's somewhat lost to
| us. We have Grimm's Fairy Stories, but as the author points out,
| in most modern editions they edit out the darker ones. We have
| this Tolstoy collection because he is a famous author and people
| are interested in his stories. And guess what, they are super
| dark. Is that because Tolstoy was dark? No, it's because the
| traditional stories of the time were much darker. Here's an
| example of a Yiddish Folktale:
|
| _Moyshele and Sheyndele_
|
| Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter who had a wife and
| two small children, a boy and a girl. The boy was called
| Moyshele, the girl Sheyndele. The woodcutter's wife died and he
| married a second wife who was a very wicked woman and a cruel
| stepmother to the children. One day the woodcutter left the house
| to chop wood in the forest, and the stepmother got ready to go to
| market to do the Sabbath shopping. Before she left, she gave the
| children some food, putting Moyshele's in a pot and Sheyndele's
| on a plate. She said, "Moyshele, if you break the pot I'll chop
| off your head, So you'd better not." She told Sheyndele,
| "Sheyndele, Sheyndele, just you wait, I'll chop off your legs if
| you break this plate." Then she slammed the door and went to
| market. The children were afraid to eat lest they break
| something, but the rooster suddenly flew up on the table and
| knocked over the pot. It fell to the ground and broke into teeny-
| tiny pieces. Moyshele, seeing them, was terrified and began to
| cry. Sheyndele comforted him, saying, "Hush, Moyshele.Don't cry."
| And she took the shards of the pot and pushed them into a corner
| of the room. When the stepmother came home, she couldn't find the
| pot. "Where is the pot?" she asked Moyshele. "The rooster broke
| it," he said. The stepmother was very angry, but she pretended
| that nothing was the matter. Later she said to Moyshele, "Come
| with me and I'll wash your hair." So Moyshele went with her. She
| took him into another room and cut off his head, after which she
| cooked it for supper. When the woodcutter came back from the
| forest he said, "Where is Moyshele?" "I don't know," said the
| stepmother. Then they sat down at the table and ate the soup and
| the meat. Sheyndele, unaware of what she was eating, sucked the
| marrow from the bones and threw them out the window. A little
| mound of earth covered the bones and when the glad summer came
| again, a new Moyshele grew up out of it. Moyshele stood there on
| his little mound until, seeing a tailor pass by, he called,
| "Tailor, tailor, make me a pair of trousers and I'll sing you a
| song: Murdered by my mother, Eaten by
| my father, and Sheyndele, when they were done,
| Sucked the marrow from my bones And threw them out the
| window."
|
| The tailor, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of
| trousers. Moyshele put them on, and then a shoemaker went by.
| Moyshele called, "Shoemaker, shoemaker, make me a pair of boots
| and I'll sing you a song: Murdered by my
| mother, Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when
| they were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones
| And threw them out the window."
|
| The shoemaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair
| of boots. Moyshele put them on, and then a hatmaker went by.
| Moyshele called, "Hatmaker, hatmaker, make me a hat and I'll sing
| you a song: Murdered by my mother,
| Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when they
| were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones And
| threw them out the window.
|
| The hatmaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a hat.
| And Moyshele put it on and ran off to school.
| One log there, One log gone. As for my tale--
| My tale is done.
|
| - Weinreich, Beatrice. Yiddish Folktales
|
| > I'm all for showing your kids reality, and bringing them to the
| hospital or the wake or the funeral. But Tolstoy's tales read
| more like an undigested rage at the world, unfortunately
| misdirected at children.
|
| Yeah no. What's the point of such a teaching story as the one
| above? Perhaps it's a story to teach resilience; _Even if the
| world treats you so badly, that it sort of chews you up and spits
| you out, you can still make your way, though perhaps it might
| just be by telling your sad story and playing on people 's
| sympathies_.
| krick wrote:
| > in most modern editions they edit out the darker ones
|
| Yeah, it's disgusting. It's incredibly hard to find actual
| stories now, they are always screwed up by talentless editors.
| Reminds me of drawing fig leaves over Renaissance pictures when
| protestantism took over.
| [deleted]
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Hmm. I think I saw this one as _The Juniper Tree_ in which the
| kid comes back as a bird first. My mother, she
| killed me, my father, he ate me, My sister Marlene
| gathered all my bones, Tied them in a silken scarf,
| Laid them beneath the juniper tree, Tweet, tweet, what a
| beautiful bird am I.
|
| (Grimm 47, Aarne-Thompson type 720, "my mother slew me, my
| father ate me")
|
| Remember that plenty of the original Grimm stories had been
| meant to entertain adults, too.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| In case you skimmed the article after the first few paragraphs,
| note that the point is not that the stories are sad or grim but
| that they are only sad or grim. There is no moral or hate that
| leads to things happening. The characters just lives who've are
| sad.
|
| I also read the article as lighthearted and humorous and so
| assumed some things may have been exaggerated it embellished
| slightly for effect.
| ginko wrote:
| Knowing Tolstoy's other writings I get the feeling that these
| one paragraph summaries don't do his prose justice.
| rosstex wrote:
| Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop. When the wind blows, the
| cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will
| fall. And down will come Baby, cradle and all.
|
| or It's raining, it's pouring, The old
| man's snoring. He went to bed And he bumped his
| head And he couldn't get up in the morning.
|
| Tell me these ain't dark.
| telesilla wrote:
| And relevant today:
|
| Ring-a-ring o'roses
|
| A pocket full of posies
|
| A-tissue, a-tissue
|
| We all fall down
|
| (actually this is not at all related to the plague but it makes
| a more scary story if we say it does)
| [deleted]
| dan-robertson wrote:
| You'd think the author of the article would have thought about
| other contemporary stories and mentioned them on their
| article...
| ken wrote:
| > I'm all for showing your kids reality
|
| I really don't think that's why children's stories used to be
| macabre. Nobody ever claimed these were accurate representations
| of reality.
| billfruit wrote:
| Not directly related, but many Soviet era children's stories, by
| Sergei Mikalkhov, et al are very good and brilliantly
| illustrated.
| lihaciudaniel wrote:
| >Anna Karenina's suicide scene spoilers on side note, isn't
| Tolstoy famous for being a Schopenhaeur influenced writers why
| did he had 13 children? He is a great writer nontheless
| 1f60c wrote:
| Is the site down?
| quotha wrote:
| Those stories sound awesome, my kids would love them!
| friedxenon wrote:
| Why do headlines all sound like they're written by teenage girls
| now, even when they're written by grown men?
| darkerside wrote:
| > But frequently those stories are redeemed by a depth which
| feels archetypal: when Rapunzel's prince falls from her tower and
| blinds himself in the rose bushes below, his blindness appears to
| have a meaning -- it's not just gratuitous bloodshed.
|
| If I doubted my dismissal of this article, I felt vindicated by
| this line. Is the author really so blind as to believe that
| popular fairy tale endings are archetypal for any reason beyond
| the fact that they became popular? They were just as nasty and
| surprising back then, and it's only repeated listenings and
| social acceptance that has made them appear to be any more child-
| appropriate than a screaming, dying tree.
|
| FWIW, I generally believe kids are way more resilient to any of
| these things than we think they are. Like the poplar tree, in
| trying to protect them, we lead them to their own downfall.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Check out the Mioomins, good for children and adults alike.
|
| The series starts with books that are allegories for World War II
| like "The Moomins and the Great Flood" and "Comet in Moominland".
| Good reading in these pandemic times not gory but all about
| seriousnes of the world we live in and how small humans and
| families can cope with that.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins
| wallstprog wrote:
| I much preferred the original title of the post -- why change it?
| smiljo wrote:
| Did we break their site? :(
|
| Edit: seems to be back up with everything in order.
| yters wrote:
| The author knows old kids tales are violent, but there is a
| meaning to thr tragedy. Tolstoy's stories are just meaninglessly
| violent and tragic.
| xabotage wrote:
| Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I
| actually think this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more
| intriguing. Most violence and tragedy in life is meaningless,
| we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's sometimes fun to read a
| fictional piece and contemplate why the themes resonate with
| me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved
| down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almost all modern
| fiction) are not intended to confront the consumer with these
| kinds of emotional/intellectual obstacles without a moralistic
| guide. This often makes it suitable for children, but I wonder
| if we underestimate children's ability to confront this kind of
| ambiguity (but that doesn't necessarily mean we should read
| Tolstoy's stories to them, or only ever offer ambiguity as a
| moral socialization strategy).
| yters wrote:
| Meaningless violence is too easy, so is ham fisted
| moralizing. True classics find some kind of meaning, even in
| the meaninless tragedy of life, like the Iliad.
| ksdale wrote:
| I grew up watching Disney-type stuff, and as I got older,
| it was off-putting to encounter stories that didn't seem to
| have a "point." A bunch of stuff happens and then you're
| required to just accept the utter lack of resolution. I
| know that some people view that lack of a resolution as
| "meaningless," and I'm not accusing you of that, but
| sometimes the lack of an obvious lesson is the lesson.
| People die, conflicts go unresolved, life goes on until it
| doesn't and sometimes all we can do is accept it.
| xabotage wrote:
| Agreed, I think the secret is often a kind of subtlety that
| can often be confused with meaninglessness. For example,
| the first time I read "Of Mice and Men", I found the
| "meaningless" suffering to be infuriating - how could this
| book possibly be considered a classic? - until I later
| understood more context around the novel's time period and
| message, and realized it was only my juvenile tastes and
| expectations that made it seem meaningless (no happy
| ending? What is this tripe?)
|
| I doubt Tolstoy wrote his stories without some kind of
| purpose, but I agree it would be a mistake to try too hard
| looking for meaning in case he just felt like writing up
| some sad shit.
| [deleted]
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| The Gigantic Turnip is an delightful children's book. I wore that
| thing to the spine with my kids:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei-Tolstoy/dp/19...
| rectang wrote:
| > * Tolstoy wrote them; they couldn't be that bad. Now I
| sincerely wish I had never touched them.*
|
| The reviewer is Disney's useful idiot. Gotta stay away from
| Tolstoy -- it's not just disturbing, it's actually dangerous!
|
| Only Bowdlerized and Disneyfied happy happy joy joy for your
| kids!
|
| And if you aren't perpetually happy all your life, it's not not
| that the universe is indifferent to human suffering, it's that
| there's something wrong with _you_.
|
| > _There isn't even that much to talk to your children about:
| trees are nice, don't cut them down so much? People are not all
| that happy?_
|
| Yeah. Maybe "People are not all that happy" would be a good thing
| for kids to learn.
| notyourday wrote:
| Old Disney stuff was dark. The fluffy versions are relatively
| recent.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| The fluffy versions sell. How popular would Little Mermaid
| have been, if at the end, Ariel ended up as sea foam?
| coribuci wrote:
| depends on the director and the script.
| ken wrote:
| How far do I have to go back? I know Sleeping Beauty (1959)
| is definitely much sanitized from the stories it's based on.
| notyourday wrote:
| Thirties and forties.
| coribuci wrote:
| Snow white is dark ???
|
| Disney is brainwash for children.
| zamfi wrote:
| > And if you aren't perpetually happy all your life, it's not
| not that the universe is indifferent to human suffering, it's
| that there's something wrong with you.
|
| How people respond to adversity and suffering matters.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post in the flamewar snark style to HN, regardless
| of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Maybe you don't
| owe the LA Review of Books better, but you owe this community
| better. Bashing another with your snark prowess doesn't open up
| thoughtful conversation.
|
| We're trying to have a community that manages not to succumb to
| the default of internet-acidic. I'm sure you know this, because
| we've had to ask you about this several times before. If you
| wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and using HN
| as intended, we'd be grateful.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| Those books shouldn't be judged by today's norms. They were not
| written for the children (nor parents... especially not parents)
| of today, but for children back then who lived in a completely
| different world.
|
| For instance, in the version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault -
| the version that we all know - one of the evil stepsisters was
| advised by her mother to cut off her toes in order to fit the
| slipper. She almost fools the prince, but doves warn him about
| blood dripping from her foot. He then goes back again and tries
| the slipper on the other sister. She cut off part of her heel in
| order to get her foot in the slipper, and again the prince is
| fooled. While riding with her to the king's castle, the doves
| alert him again about the blood on her foot.
|
| How about that for a good night story?
| copperx wrote:
| Aren't we and our children exposed to much more violence,
| blood, and plain evilness in media nowadays?
|
| I don't understand how people in those times would be less
| sensitive to such themes.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| In older societies, people see a lot more violence/blood
| toward animals. In old-fashioned societies, when you need a
| chicken, the butcher grabs a live one, wrestles it's
| wriggling body, wrings its neck, and skins it in front of
| you. You grab the meat and it's still warm. Butchers killing
| larger livestock is likely a show you can see near the
| market, you may even have participated in some such act
| yourself because of customs. It would be a common thing and
| it's so visceral. You smell it. You can see the animal's
| struggle, fear and pain. After you are habituated to that, a
| story is not so bad.
| lainga wrote:
| I think the operative term is "evilness" - if you are a
| moderately wealthy westerner in this century, violence and
| bloodshed are things you have relegated to seeing in media,
| and not an unavoidable part of life
| bscphil wrote:
| > violence and bloodshed
|
| And ideally, most of that sanitized away by the media which
| just talks numbers, shows air strikes from 50 km away, and
| tells you how many "insurgents" were killed today.
| realo wrote:
| Hum... Mozart's father (Leopold) took his son and daughter to
| a public hanging 'for a jolly treat one free afternoon'.
|
| That would not work, nowadays...
|
| https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marvel-of-mozart-
| s-l...
| foobarian wrote:
| Or, original Hansel and Gretel - parents dropped them off in in
| the woods because there was not enough food for everyone.
|
| Or, "The Little Match Girl." Yikes.
| pmontra wrote:
| > The publicists of the most recent edition issued by Simon &
| Schuster, who seemingly did not read it, write of this book,
| "children will be able to take away important lessons, as well as
| laugh at silly mishaps and characters, from this timeless
| collection."
|
| This is possible but unfortunately the author of the article
| decided not to answer his children:
|
| > "Daddy," my stunned four-year-old son asked, "why did the lion
| die?"
|
| > "Daddy Daddy," my daughter asked, still wondering about the
| now-dead lion's lifestyle, "why did the people feed the lion
| puppies?"
|
| Instead he "took the book away and hid it from" them. Not good
| parenting IHMO. Don't read from that book again, OK, but find an
| answer to those questions.
| aaronharnly wrote:
| I happen to be a close personal friend of the author, and
| happen to know that he answers deep and difficult questions
| from his children very directly and well; and that he allows
| them to see all facets of life (an eagle eating a mouse; a deer
| not surviving the winter) as a matter of course. Perhaps the
| paragraph is simply lighthearted :)
| irrational wrote:
| Find an answer? The lion starved to death before he could pass
| through all the stages of grief. Loose pets are free meat for
| the lion. Neither of these answers would be satisfying to
| children.
|
| Taking the book away and hiding it is good parenting. Better
| parenting would be reading the book ahead of time and never
| sharing it with them to begin with.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/yBlli
| kulix425 wrote:
| really uplifting when everyone needed it the most. thank you
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Tolstoy's tales are unusual in that they lack the depth of
| relationships -- and even hatred -- that the old folk tales have.
| There are no stories of wicked stepparents or lurking dangers in
| the woods. Instead, there is a kind of dead-end romanticism: bad
| thing happens; a person is sad; end of story. There isn't even
| that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice, don't
| cut them down so much? People are not all that happy?_
|
| Wow. The author seems to be missing the morals _entirely_. Just
| from browsing their story descriptions, the lessons seem to be
| about, respectively:
|
| - The overwhelming power of grief, which you may wind up
| suffering when you choose to love
|
| - Don't be tricked by people trying to get you to enjoy yourself
| in a dangerous situation
|
| - The feeling that makes you uncomfortable destroying beauty is a
| kind of conscience, so listen to it, for there is an intrinsic
| connection between beauty and life
|
| - Happiness is misunderstood by nearly all -- it doesn't come
| from material possessions, it comes from within
|
| - People are supported by those around them, not diminished, so
| don't treat those who surround you as unimportant or take them
| for granted
|
| - If you tame an animal, you're responsible for their well-being.
| You can't "go back" or shirk your responsibilities, so think
| twice before you take on a personal commitment or you may
| generate suffering you never intended
|
| Writers for the LA Review of Books are generally... supposed to
| be literary and really good at finding meaning in texts, heck
| even way more meaning than the author sometimes intended.
|
| This author seems to be being deliberately obtuse about these
| stories. I'm not sure why. But these stories seem incredibly
| stimulating food-for-thought to talk with your children about.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| There have been lots of comments about how dark children'a books
| were. But, back then, children's lives were pretty dark. With the
| high infant and childhood mortality, a good proportion of
| children had lost a brother or sister. Given maternal mortality,
| many children had probably lost a mother in childbirth. Given the
| nature of farmwork and the primitive nature of medicine, many
| children probably had a father, uncle, etc who was killed or main
| in an accident. And that is before you consider the frequent wars
| in which soldiers roamed across the land raping, pillaging, and
| killing. Death would have been all around children.
| mhb wrote:
| Nowadays everyone's wrong on the internet, but that doesn't
| mean I want to read a book about it.
| goto11 wrote:
| Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally
| for children. They were told among adults after children had gone
| to sleep. But when folklorists (like the Grimm brothers) started
| collecting and publishing folk tales, it became a trend to
| publish sanitized edition for children.
|
| Read something like the Arabian Nights tales in an uncensored
| version - these were clearly not intended for children anymore
| than 50 Shades of Grey are for children. The children's editions
| are _heavily_ sanitized.
|
| I suspect their change into children literature was because of
| cultural changes - educated 19th century adults couldn't take
| folktales serious anymore (except as anthropological studies) and
| found them childish. The same way that 19th century popular
| literature like Dumas and Verne became children's books in the
| 20th century.
|
| Walt Disney is often criticized in this context, but both Snow
| White and Cinderella are actually pretty faithful to the source
| material. Cinderella is just based on the Charles Perrault
| version of the story, not the Grimm version which contain a lot
| more maiming.
| dannygarcia wrote:
| > Folktales were not originally for children.
|
| I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made
| "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler.
| There are some particularly disturbing stories but I was
| surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical or silly (like
| The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's
| fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form.
| Not your typical bedtime story.
|
| [0] https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html
| voldacar wrote:
| Wow, what a strange story. Super surreal and dreamlike
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| > Walt Disney is often criticized in this context
|
| Disney hired Pixar to put out Tolstoy 1 and 2, then they
| acquired Pixar and have since released Tolstoy 3 and 4.
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| For those interested in seeing the scope/variation of
| cinderella stories, there's a book "cinderella; three hundred
| and forty-five variants"
| https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 that is ... I
| wouldn't recommend reading it cover-to-cover like I did, but
| there are some interesting variants hidden in it!
| ginko wrote:
| This seems to be pretty much par for the course for 19th century
| children's books. Compare them to the original versions of H.C.
| Andersen's fairy tales or Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter[1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter
| user982 wrote:
| When you say "the original versions of H.C. Andersen's fairy
| tales," you mean as compared to modern (Disney) adaptations,
| right? I know the Grimm tales were self-sanitized in later
| editions, but haven't heard that of Andersen's.
| ginko wrote:
| Yeah, I was mainly referring to the later adaptions. Don't
| think there were different versions.
| brummm wrote:
| My gandma used to read the Struwwelpeter stories to me as a
| child. I would actually disagree with the premise of the
| article that they make children want to die. They actually are
| supposed to frighten children into behaving properly.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I am willing to agree. I read Grimm really early. The purpose
| of those stories is not some sort of cutesy money grab slash
| temporary babysitter to keep the little ones occupied long
| enough for parents to do what needs to be done. That said, I
| understand the reason for both. Both are needed, but
| dismissing those stories, because they are scaring kids is..
| it feels like a rehash of the self-esteem movement.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I actually enjoyed the stories back then and they didn't
| really work when it came to changing my behaviour. Probably
| mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the
| bloodier parts.
| brummm wrote:
| The one that would always stick out to me was the one of
| the child that doesn't want to eat its soup and then dies
| (Suppenkasper).
| derefr wrote:
| > Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the
| seriousness of the bloodier parts.
|
| And this is why the original folktales emphasize the gore.
| You can basically chop off the last quarter of any folktale
| and replace it with a direction to the story-teller, i.e.
| "[and now you shall carry on about bad things happening to
| the child protagonist, in as visceral a manner as you have
| the mind and words to render, until the children listening
| have been thoroughly traumatized as to the consequences of
| their misbehavior.]"
| ginko wrote:
| Same here. The thing is I don't think they're just supposed
| to frighten children. I can remember having lots of fun
| getting those stories read to me by my grandmother. Of course
| they're dark, but they're also comically exaggerated. There's
| certainly a reason why Struwwelpeter has been popular for
| generations.
| kick wrote:
| "Tolstoy's Children's Stories Will Devastate Your Children
| and Make _You_ Want to Die "
| will_pseudonym wrote:
| This is the 2nd time I've heard of Struwwelpeter. The first
| time was on The Office (US).
|
| https://youtu.be/OeIi4ni1LvY?t=67
| yters wrote:
| "Ring around the rosy" is about the plague.
|
| "12 days of Christmas" and other tales and sings have hidden
| Christian symbolism due to persecution.
| downerending wrote:
| I'm still vaguely haunted by _Never Tease a Weasel_. Seen through
| children 's eyes, probably a lot of books targeting them are
| rather creepy.
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(page generated 2020-04-27 23:00 UTC)